


Sally Sells Sea Shells By The Sea Shore

by Cryingravens



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bullying, Comforting Mycroft, Feels, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Holmes Family, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Martha Holmes, Minor Character Death, Minor Character(s), Mycroft-centric, Percival is mine, Siger Holmes - Freeform, Verbal Abuse, Verbal Humiliation, happy-ish ending, stutter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-18
Updated: 2013-06-18
Packaged: 2017-12-15 08:12:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/847286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryingravens/pseuds/Cryingravens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft struggles with a stutter throughout his life. How will his friends and family react? Will anyone stand up for him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sally Sells Sea Shells By The Sea Shore

Mycroft sat very still on the ottoman in his father’s study. Siger Holmes sat at his desk doing paperwork, seemingly ignoring his oldest child. The two had been sitting his these spots for over an hour and counting. 

“S-sally-”

“Again.” Came the barked order from his father. 

“S-sally-”

“AGAIN!”

“Sally s-sells-”

The pen his father was using to write with was thrown in his direction and he flinched slightly. 

“You sound like a bloody retard!” His father bellowed at him, standing from his desk. 

Mycroft wanted nothing more than to look at the floor, but that was a lesson he had learned early on. Men don’t look at the floor. Men sit perfectly still when going over lessons. Men don’t stutter. 

Mycroft hated his halting speech. He hated how the words stuck in his throat and refused to go further even when he tried his hardest. He hated that the children picked on him. Most of all he hated how much it disappointed his father every time he opened his mouth to speak. 

“It’s not a hard thing to say your idiot! Sally sells sea shells by the sea shore. Now I want you to stop your bloody stuttering and say that damn sentence.”

Once his father sat down and ran a hand through his graying dark hair, Mycroft stood and walked over to where the pen landed. 

“Sally sells s-sea sh-shells by the sea sh-shore.” He said softly to himself as he picked up the pen. 

“What was that boy?”

Mycroft turned and walked to the desk. “Sally sells sea sh-shells-”

His head snapped to the side as his father’s strong hand struck him across the mouth. 

“Get out of my fucking sight. You are a disgrace to the Holmes name.” 

Mycroft bit his lower lip and set the pen on the desk. With a nod he left the room and fought back tears. 

He hated how Sally sold sea shells by the sea shore.

*

Sherlock sat at the table swinging his legs underneath. Percival, their butler, was cooking pancakes for breakfast while their parents were out of town. 

“Don’t make too many Percival. F-F-F-Fatcroft here is on a diet according to Papa.”

Mycroft looked up from his book and glared at his younger brother. He was happy when Father was out of town, it meant he didn’t have to go over his speaking lessons and he could eat in the kitchen with the help. 

“Picking on your brother is bad form Sherlock. What would your mother say?” Percival said to the younger Holmes as he set three large pancakes on his plate. 

“Mum’s too soft on him says Papa. Maybe Fatcroft wouldn’t stutter if she were stricter with him.”

“Sherlock, that is quite enough. ” Percival said sternly.

Mycroft went back to reading his book. 

“Here you are Mycroft. Would you like butter and syrup?” The kind butler asked.

Mycroft nodded and reached for the butter. Percival instead touched his hand. 

“Come now, young sir. Let’s hear those impeccable manners please?”

“Y-yes, p-please.” Mycroft said softly, ignoring how his younger sibling sniggered into his pancakes.

“Very good sir.” Percival gave a warm smile and went back to cooking. 

“He didn’t even say it without a stutter!” Sherlock said indignantly. 

“If you keep picking at your brother I am going to throw out all of your “hidden” experiments when I clean.” Percival said in a warning tone. 

Sherlock’s mouth shut with a click and he scowled at Mycroft as though it were his fault. 

“Besides a stutter is nothing to be ashamed of. Did you know Churchill stuttered? So did His Majesty King George VI. Surely you wouldn’t dare pick on them for a stutter would you Sherlock?”

The petulant dark haired boy frowned at the butler, but said nothing more. The rest of breakfast was silent, which Mycroft found he didn’t mind all that much.

*

Mycroft looked over his marks and smiled. Straight A’s in everything. He couldn’t be prouder of his accomplishment. 

When he entered his father’s study and held out the grades he hoped he could make his father proud. 

“Straight A’s? From a dimwit like you? Are you in those retard classes? Surely these marks are wrong.”

Mycroft felt his heart break, but kept his gaze level. 

“Tell Sherlock that I want to see his marks when he gets home. No doubt there will be notes about his behavior, but he is at least in normal classes.”

Mycroft nodded, swallowing his hurt and took back his report card. Without ever saying a word he left the study and went to the kitchen where Sherlock was evidently enjoying his afternoon snack.

“Mycroft darling! How was school?” 

Mycroft smiled at his mother and held out his marks to her. 

“Straight A’s! Even in the advanced placement classes? Amazing Mycroft. Here, Percival, look at Myc’s marks.” 

Percival took the page and looked it over. “A job splendidly done, young sir. In celebration would you care for a slice of cake?”

“Y-yes please, P-Percival.” Mycroft said softly. 

His mother and the butler beamed at him and he was given a slice of cake. 

“I got good grades too Mum!” Sherlock said, digging out his marks with grubby hands. 

“Wonderful! My two brilliant boys! Percival, I hear Siger is leaving for the office tonight and won’t be home for dinner. Do you think we could order in some pizza for them?”

Both boy’s eyes lit up and Sherlock whooped loud enough for the both of them. For once his father’s opinion meant very little to him. He was going to eat pizza and be celebrated for being smart, even if it would take him six tries to say “smart”.

*

Mycroft’s eyes flew wide as the headmaster told him he had to deliver his valedictorian speech. 

“S-sir, you c-can’t be s-s-s-serious! Any sp-speech I give w-will t-take hours.” 

“Mycroft, my dear boy. You have the highest scores this school has ever seen. You are graduating two years early and you have been excepted into both Cambridge and Oxford on full scholarships. You deserve to give this speech.”

“I d-don’t c-c-care. P-please c-can’t s-some one else give the sp-speech?”

The headmaster looked sad. “If it distresses you that much, I suppose you wouldn’t need to give a speech.”

Mycroft let out a breath he hadn’t known he had been holding. 

“Th-thank you, s-s-sir.”

*

Mycroft sat in the front row of seats at funeral beside his mother and Sherlock. His mother was dabbling at her eyes and Sherlock had drawn into himself to the point he didn’t even seem to notice the tears that tracked down his cheeks. 

“Poor thing. Hasn’t even cried yet he is in such shock.” He heard Aunt Mildred whisper.

They were right he hadn’t cried. 

“Now, Ladies and Gentleman a eulogy presented by Siger’s children.” The Priest said motioning the two boys up to the alter.

They were wrong, though. It wasn’t shock or his own grieving process that stopped his tears from falling.

Sherlock pulled the speech Mycroft had written from his pocket and set it on the podium.

You need to feel grief for the loss of a person to properly mourn them once the pass away. Mycroft felt nothing for his father. 

“Our Father was a kind man, a patient man. He loved his children and wife.” Sherlock began to read.

He was also bloody well sure his father felt nothing for him.

*

Mycroft looked at DI Lestrade with a smile. The man’s silver hair catching the light just right as it had every time Mycroft had the pleasure of running into him. The DI had learned his name and even took to talking to him whenever he showed up at a crime scene. His intel had told him that the detective was recently divorced and just starting to get back into the swing of dating. 

Now was the perfect chance. He had already deduced that Lestrade was bisexual. He had seen him look at other men and even on occasion look at Sherlock. He hoped that perchance the man would be interested at the very least in going to dinner. 

Just as always he strode up the the man and began idle chatter about the case. Until the perfect opening came.    
“I just hope that we can wrap this case so I can finally get a decent meal that isn’t box noodles or take away.”

“That would get rather dull. When this case is completed would you care to go to dinner with m-me?” 

He heard his brother choke on a laugh behind him and he froze. 

Suddenly, Mycroft could hear the cacophony in his head of slurs and curses. Dullard, idiot, retard, fool, stupid, moron. Each as painful as the last time he heard them, cutting open the scars and making them bleed anew. His mouth snapped shut and he turned away from Lestrade. 

Without another word he walked to his car and climbed in the back seat ignoring the confused calls from the DI behind him. 

‘You bloody idiot. No one wants to date a stuttering moron,’ he mentally berated himself.

He heard someone bang on the window, but he ordered the driver onward, his stutter making things progressively harder to tell the man to take him home. 

“What the bloody hell was that all about?” Greg asked Sherlock after the car pulled away without any explanation. 

“Seems Mycroft’s stutter has returned. No doubt he will be sitting at home repeating all of his dull repetitive saying to try to force it away. Funny really, a government official reduced to drivel over a simple slip of the tongue.”

Sherlock didn’t get a chance to say anymore before he felt a hand cuff him around the head. 

“You’re a right git, you know that?! You laughed at your brother because he stuttered on one word?”

Sherlock frowned and eyed up Lestrade. 

“He’s always had that stutter. Father used to make him repeat lines to try to be rid of it.”

“And no doubt it made it worse.” John exclaimed softly. “You said your father died a few years back. Did Mycroft’s stutter disappear after that?”

Sherlock nodded but said nothing. 

“Right. You two have this right? I’ll just-”

“Yes, yes Lestrade. Go after the damsel in distress while the rest of us solve relevant things like cases and-”

“Good. I’ll leave you to it then. Donovan! You are in charge.”

Sherlock frowned as Greg climbed into his car and drove away. 

*

“S-Sally... f-fuck.” Mycroft spat, finding himself unable to say even the simplest of sayings on the first go. 

He thought he had cleared it all up. He thought he was free of it. He wanted to go to the Diogenes Club. It had been his solace for reading, giving him time to clear his thoughts in a place where no one expected or wanted him to talk. 

He was so wrapped up in his own stutter that he never heard the door. 

“You never gave me a chance to answer.”

Immediately Mycroft whipped around to face Greg. 

“S-Sorry?” Mycroft said before clamping a hand over his traitorous mouth.

“You asked me to dinner and I never gave you an answer. It’s yes, by the way.”

“H-how? Wh-Why?”

“You think a stutter is going to stop me from going on a date with the sexiest man I have ever seen? You must be daft.” Greg gave him a smile. “My daughter has a stutter too you know? She’s found it’s brought on by stress. It gets worse, the more stressed you are.”

Mycroft nodded slightly and regarded Greg with a pensive look. 

“I’m a bit flattered you got worked up just asking me out. Makes me feel young again. I do, however, wish you wouldn’t worry. No need to ever be nervous around this old dog.”

“You’re not old.”

“I’m older than you are.”

Mycroft straightened and looked him Lestrade over. “Sherlock said you haven’t stuttered since your father passed on. Is that true?”

“It is.” Mycroft said carefully. 

“Well then, I guess all we need to do is keep you stress free and you can go back to running the government stutter free.”

“I hold a minor-”

“Don’t give me that malarky.” Greg said with a fond smile. “Where were you thinking for dinner?”

*

Mycroft stood with his speech in hand staring out at the meager crowd. 

“I d-don’t think I c-can d-do this.”

“Don’t worry about it. You know that even if you do stutter, he would be proud you are speaking for him.” Greg said softly. 

Mycroft gave his partner a smile and nodded. He stepped up to the alter and set the papers on the podium. He watched Greg take his seat beside his mother and took a deep breath as the man gave him a “thumbs up”. 

“Most people remember Percival as a loyal worker. Some remember him as a fantastic friend. I, however, remember him as the man who treated me as though I was his son; as though I was blood. He was the k-kindest-” Mycroft froze for a moment and let a his eyes look over the people watching. Not a single harsh look, nor snicker was there. Even his mother was smiling fondly at him next to Sherlock who had a look that clearly said “Get on with it”. 

“He was the kindest man I have ever known. When anyone asks me who he was to me, I will never hesitate to say. He was my father, even when my own father refused to acknowledge me.”

As Mycroft continued his speech, he felt tears trickling down his cheeks. In that moment he was more concerned that the man in the casket beside him had passed on, than he was about how he sounded.

And to be truthful, he was completely alright with that.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic on AO3. Hopefully it is up to snuff. I do not own Sherlock in any way shape of form. I do however call Percival my own. Anyone want to offer their mad Beta-ing skills I would appreciate it. Comments and kudos are always appreciated!


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